


Not Afraid of Getting Older

by musicaldork



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Adopted Children, Aging, Character Death, Children, Families of Choice, Family, Father Figures, Fatherhood, Fluff, Future Fic, Gen, Growing Old, Kid Fic, Memories, Orphanage, Orphans, Platonic Relationships, Reminiscing, Retirement, Storytelling, Unconventional Families, but dont you worry, its so peaceful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:40:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24276757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musicaldork/pseuds/musicaldork
Summary: Fjord retires to the coast, by the sea, where his heart has always belonged.Returning to the orphanage of his youth, he takes the plunge and takes up the task of doing what nobody ever did for him.
Comments: 18
Kudos: 96





	Not Afraid of Getting Older

When Fjord finally decided to part ways with the Mighty Nein, it wasn’t without the shedding of irrepressible tears from some members of the party.

He didn’t leave without tears either.  
Nor did he go without that resigned, quiet sort of sorrow that settled hollow in his chest.  
He could tell that they felt it too. 

And it wasn’t as though he were the first to leave.

Veth had a family - a thoughtful husband with a little boy who’d gone long enough without his mother in hand. They understood. 

But understanding didn't dull the pain of her absence.  
Her not being there was like the faltering of a missing limb.  
And despite knowing that it was for the best, it didn’t make it much easier.

Fighting gods and ending wars, entangling themselves in adventure and political machinations.  
It had been a good many years since they’d begun. 

Who would have thought that a ragtag group of adventurers - with guarded pains branded inside out on their skin - could’ve gotten to where they were today?   
How could they have known that a tavern conversation, a handful of coin, and the peddling of one fated circus showing could have changed the trajectories of their lives so severely?

He’d never had a single dull moment with them. It had all been so much.  
There’d been so much danger, bucket-loads of recklessness, and _heart beyond belief_ in them.

He’d never met a messier group of people in his life - himself in all his ragged, questioning complexities fully included.

Still, he wouldn’t have had it any other way.

\---

It’s hard to admit that they’re all a little slower nowadays.   
The nimbleness of relative youth has slipped from most of them. It’s not the same. 

Time is catching up on quite a few members of the party, but it hasn’t been unkind.   
It’s a fair, graceful ticking of the clock that draws them back down to the earth.

They could very well charge forward as they always have. There’s always more monsters to quell in combat if they go out searching for them.  
They _could_ , but...

Fjord is faced with a feeling that he just _knows_ , deep in the pit of his stomach. 

When it’s time to stop throwing yourself against the wall. 

When it’s time to stop running.

As much as the thrill had lured them all in, by now, most of them were all more than ready to let themselves _breathe_ , whether they were willing to admit it or not.

Even as he’d stepped back onto the coasts of Port Damali - purpose in hand and fragile hope in heart - it was still a difficult thing to bear, saying goodbye.

But still. It’d never be a true farewell - not to the only family he’s ever really known. 

It’s easier to think of it as... as a ‘see you later.’

\---

As threatening as it could be - and as tempestuous as his connection to it had been - Fjord had to admit that his heart would always belong to the sea.

He tastes the salt in the seabreeze and feels a little squeeze in his throat when he sees all the ways Port Damali has changed. 

The things he remembers from his youth - as troubled as it was - were replaced with so much new, so much different. 

Most of the reminders of the past were erased as the tide came in with the present, he supposed; though the tracks of familiarity were well-worn into the banks of his memory. It was almost uncanny to come back here after so many years. 

It felt like the lilt of a lullaby you can never quite forget.

Standing in front of the orphanage of his youth, Fjord felt like his boots were weighed down with lead. He could barely find it in himself to put one foot after the other to wrap his knuckles on the door.

He wasn’t young when he first set off with the Mighty Nein, but he was even farther from it now.

Even as everything remained, it still changed. Time never left anything untouched.  
Not the flesh on his bones, nor the building of his unpleasant childhood.  
Time had worn it down to even worse conditions than he remembered, but it was still very much open.

Fjord... wanted to find the orphanage he was raised in and buy it out.   
Purchase the Driftwood Asylum, as it was so aptly named - for many a drifting child the system had failed.

The notion had stricken him when he’d felt that he was nearing the end of his adventuring days. 

It felt crazy. But try as he might to distance himself from the idea, he kept on returning to it, turning the thought about in his head in constant, restless circles.

And that was what brought him here. Well, he was as ready as he’d ever be.

\---

As soon as Fjord stepped inside, the deluge of memories that flooded back nearly overwhelmed him with nausea.  
It was just as suffocating a place as he remembered. 

It wasn’t the smallest place in the world, but the atmosphere was nothing short of oppressive.

A disinterested-looking man with a slack-jawed set to his mouth barely bothered to acknowledge Fjord when he walked through the door. 

He only showed his interest when Fjord brought up his preposition: a healthy amount of coin - far more than the average person had likely seen in all their days - for ownership of the orphanage.

His blood boiled furiously in his veins at how easily the man was taken in by the coin (no safety checks, no concern for the children’s adjustment, nothing?) but he swallowed down his disdain to paste on a thin veneer of charm, though his clipped accent was noticeably irritated.

“Right. Thank you so much. Pleasure doing business with you.”

The man runs out the door - money in hand - like a man demented. 

He’s probably trying to go before Fjord can change his mind over the podunk orphanage.

Fjord’s glad to see the tail end of him.

\---

It takes a long time for Fjord to get to know the kids, and twice as long to earn their trust.

Even so, he remembers exactly what he felt like in their shoes - so, so _unloved,_ understandably on guard and ever wary of the mass failings of authority figures. 

He sets his resolve on making sure that a child under his care would never feel that way again.

Because he _does_ care for them, goddamnit. And they deserve to feel it.

\---

Time treks mercilessly onwards, but Fjord’s so occupied with the children, that he only thinks back on it when he has a spare minute to himself. Spare time.   
Understandably, these moments are few and far between for him.

He juggles the days as best as he can and gets real good at all the things he knows he should. 

He cooks for them, and cleans up after them - he tussles with the ones big enough to need play-fighting to get out their energy, and lets them cry themselves out on his shoulder when they need it. Sometimes, he even tells them bedtime stories - of a great adventuring party who, despite their issues, eventually found solace in each other.   
People who built a family from the ground up on the foundations of trust and love.

So outwardly different, with all types of backgrounds and inner baggage - but the same in spirit and in heart.

And though he scales-back the stories and makes sure they’re all age-appropriate, Fjord can’t help himself from waxing gospel about a very familiar cast of colourful characters. 

It makes him feel closer to the Nein when he lets himself talk out his memories, tales complete with bright eyes and wild gestures, as well as dramatic accent imitations that make the kids giggle all the while.

A sweet blue tiefling woman who never let the world extinguish her light; a person who once saved the day with her quick thinking, her _kindness_ \- and the help of a stale cupcake.

A halfling woman who fought like a wild thing to become herself again, against all odds - whose courage was fuelled by love for her family, by sacrifice and with irrevocable _bravery_.

A wizard who eventually learnt to forgive himself for the things that he could not change.  
A man who started to truly _live_ instead of simply surviving the moment he stopped defining himself by his worst moment.

A blue-robed monk who rose up to be so much more than people ever thought she could be - growing and bettering herself, but never compromising on who she really was and what she truly stood for.

A winged barbarian who loved and lost, and loved and lost - and still let herself love again. A woman who found that strength could be found in flowers and gentleness, or in the rage of the storm, if you sought it there.

A sage, pink-haired firbolg who helped Fjord himself find his way. A man who found out that he was so much more than ‘the one left behind ’- who took hold of his destiny and never let go of his unshaken faith in the hardest of times.

Sometimes he’ll even talk about a wonderful little fey cat who could be so many things - an octopus, a sparrow or a monkey even! It delights the smallest ones when he starts meowing conversationally.

On the rarest of occasions, Fjord will bite back a bittersweet smile, and tell tales of a very special purple circus man.  
He’s one that the little ones especially love hearing about.

If he throws in a few stories about a half-orc who wasn’t the happiest kid, but learnt so many things on his adventures... and ended up taking care of the best kids in the whole wide world, who’s to complain?

A few of them stick their tongue out at him, and tease that one hero of the story seems awfully familiar to a certain half-orc father figure of theirs.  
But he only whistles innocently at their probes, playing the cheerful fool and calling for bedtime to a chorus of exaggerated groans.

When he tucks them all in, and gives them small kisses on the forehead - mindful of his tusks - he finds that he seems to have learned another blessed meaning to the word ‘family’.

\---

The first time one of the kids calls him dad, Fjord almost feels like the world has stopped spinning from under his feet. They see him as... a father. The realisation should have hit him earlier, but now it crashes over him with all the intensity of a riptide. 

_Wow. Dad?_

He swallows against a sudden gnarl of emotion in his throat and claps the kid on the back gently, giving them a wobbly, watery smile. 

The only thing he can do is laugh when the kids rib him playfully for being such a sap.

\---

Running an orphanage.

It’s not really something monumental, he supposes.   
Sure, he’s not changing the entire planet, or ending wars across planes - or even killing gods and demons, but... it feels significant all the same.  
  
Someone had to show these kids the love that they deserved in spades.   
He’s glad that he was the one lucky enough to do it.

And though he isn’t sure if he’d put it exactly like that - he seems to have taught them love - _family_. 

They run around and laugh, miles away from the withdrawn, neglected children they were when he first took over. Most kids simply get aged out, and take the leap to independence, but they often come back to visit when they can. Always welcome.

Sometimes they even bring their own kids around. 

Sentimental old man, they call him fondly, when his voice wobbles happily at the sight of smiling faces and children with futures shining brighter than his own. 

The children he raised - the children he loves, not so small now - have grown into kind, beaming people, he sees it in their eyes.  
  
Breaking the endless cycle of pain and neglect with all the love and care he can give them. That’s something beautiful.

Maybe Fjord can’t change the entire world, but he’s seen how he’s changed just a few of them, and that’s enough for him.

\---

Fjord has never had the years of most members of the Mighty Nein.   
He knows that his natural clock will run out likely sooner than they, if the gods permitted it.

But he feels content. Satisfied with what he’s done with the time that he had.

Years of peace have softened the hard edges the world has carved on him, both physically and emotionally.   
He’s not on edge the way he was when he travelled and fought his way through problems, and by now he’s let go of the toxic ideal of masculinity he inherited from Vandran.   
Fjord lets himself feel his feelings. He worked hard to get through all those internalised issues of his - for fear of accidentally passing them onto his kids.

 _His kids._ What a funny thing to think. The words ring unequivocally true to him.

The dark, feathered wings of a raven flit in the corner of his eye through the open window.

He knows what that means.

It’s not surprising. He feels the hoarse rattling of his breath in his ribcage, and it feels like it’s time. He’s not afraid.

That same aged weariness that has plagued him for quite some time, tugs heavily at his bones, the wrinkles set in his skin an ever-constant reminder of every second of time he’s ever spent.  
But there aren’t any regrets he hasn’t let go of by now.  
The smile lines and crow's feet in his skin spell out every story he ran out of breath to tell.

Suddenly, he feels very tired. Maybe some would struggle against the inevitable and maybe some would pray for more time, but to him, it feels like exactly the right time for a nice little rest.

Fjord just smiles to himself, and closes his eyes for the last time. 

He’s happy.


End file.
